


Beautiful Ghosts

by AdventureAddict



Series: Songs of Another World [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Adulthood, Bodyswap, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Crossover, Parallel Universes, Post-Canon, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28523307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdventureAddict/pseuds/AdventureAddict
Summary: Noah has never known anywhere she's felt safer than in Ed's arms. Maybe that's because he's one of the few people in the world who will actually hold her without flinching. She's familiar with his own inner demons after spending so long looking into his memories, but she didn't think that confessing her love to him would make him freak out so bad he disappeared. Now a stranger wearing Ed's face has come home speaking a language she can't speak, ignoring her in favor of Alphonse, and making Noah feel more alone than ever before.(A companion fic to The Other Side, except from Noah's POV)
Relationships: Edward Elric/Noah, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Series: Songs of Another World [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089266
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Beautiful Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this will honestly make any sense or not if you haven't read my other fic, The Other Side. I would recommend you read that one first and come back to this. Though you're also more than welcome to read this anyway and yell at me for not making sense. That's valid.

_All that I wanted_  
_Was to be wanted_  
_Too young to wander London streets_  
_Alone and haunted_

_Born into nothing_  
_At least you have something_  
_Something to cling to_  
_Visions of dazzling rooms I'll never get let into_

_And the memories were lost long ago_  
_But at least you have beautiful ghosts_

* * *

So far, the day had seemed pretty darn perfect. 

So maybe she and Ed hadn't managed to get very good tips so far today. Sometimes there were more important things to focus on, like spending time with your best friend, or attending a lecture on the science of love. Noah couldn't help but find herself fascinated by the topic, listening intently as the lecturer described this entire hidden world of chemicals inside her. It was maybe a more sterile approach to the topic than she would have preferred, but it was still fascinating. 

Noah could feel Ed's eyes on her as she listened to the lecture though, and sure enough, when she turned to look at him, he was watching her with a little dopey grin on his face. She grinned back at him. "What?' 

"Nothing," Ed whispered with a wave of his hand. "It's just... cute how much you enjoy learning."

She smiled wider at him. He was the one being adorable, just smiling at her like that when he thought she wasn't paying attention. She turned slightly and scooted against him so her shoulder pressed against his, leaning her weight into him as they listened.

That was one of the things she loved about him, how he was so casual and open with her touching him. He didn't mind her touching him whenever, whether that was leaning against him, or holding his hand, or just brushing a hand over his shoulders as she walked past. And she loved sitting with him during quiet moments like this, where his brain was focused on something. 

And this time, his brain happened to be focused on love, so all his memories were centered around that. There was his mother hanging clothes on the clothesline on a sunny day, turning and smiling with as much warmth as the sun, Al sitting by the river, his arms pulled around his knees and his tiny chubby face pressed into a frown, Winry on a porch flicking a spotlight on and off and on and off...

Then there were memories of Noah, which never ceased to surprise her. It had first started happening soon after she had first started traveling with Ed and Al, and she'd held Ed's hands while he apologized to her, getting a glimpse of her frantically reaching out to him as he hurtled towards the Gate. It was odd, seeing herself through someone else's eyes, but Noah had eventually gotten used to it. Somehow in Ed's memories, there was this essence to her that she couldn't see when she was looking in a mirror. It was like she was softer in his memories, prettier and glowing. 

And because today they were listening to a lecture about love, all of Ed's memories had that warm glow to them. Love while she was dancing and laughing, looking back at him, love while they ran through the rain with his coat hastily covering their heads, love while his fingers plucked a tune on a guitar on the street and watched her dance to it, love while they sat outside in the summer air as he showed her how the stars were different here than back home. It was such an intense feeling that it filled Noah up until she felt like she could burst. It was the same feeling she felt whenever she remembered her own memories about Ed. She wished she could share her memories back with him and show him what he looked like to her. She leaned into him a little bit more, and Ed reached down and laced his fingers through hers, his eyes on the lecturer. 

_"I'm pretty sure Brother loves you too, Noah, he just hasn't realized yet that's what he's feeling."_

Al's words flitted through Noah's mind, and she looked down at Ed's fingers laced between hers. Maybe Al was right. Maybe she needed to just try telling Ed what she was feeling. Maybe once she took that first step, the rest of them would come naturally. She smiled and squeezed his hand. 

"That was so interesting," Noah said as they filed out of the lecture hall with the other students. People pressed against them on both sides, making Noah dizzy with flashes of memory. The stress of homework being undone while a baby screamed, the smell of frying onions and a warm fireplace, the feeling of a broken heart as someone walked away, a redheaded woman and her sister at the ocean waiting for someone-

-and the cacophony of memories stopped as Ed fumbled for her hand, grabbing her and pulling her against him. His memories were familiar and warm compared to the mess of strangers around them, even when he had a flash of a bad memory. She hummed and rested her head against his shoulder with a smile, feeling him turn his head to look at something. 

"Al should be getting out soon," Ed murmured. "Think we should head back to the apartment?"

"Sure, let's go home."

As they walked, Noah let herself melt against Ed and his memories, her mind flitting back to what she had been thinking about back in the lecture hall. She had to tell him how she was feeling. She just had to. If she didn't figure out a way to talk about it, the two of them could easily end up dancing around one another's feelings forever. 

As the apartment got closer and closer, Noah felt a panic slowly bubbling up in her. She had to do it now, before they got home, because what if Al was already home? Then she wouldn't feel brave enough to say anything, and she would put it off, and then it just wouldn't get said. Noah found her feet stop moving, her fingers squeezing against Ed's as he paused and looked at her. 

"Noah?" 

She had to do it now. She had to do something. she had to find a way to tell him this. She had to. Now. Now now now. Do it or you'll be regretting it all night. Just tell him. But every time she tried to think of the right words to say, her mouth went dry and her mind went blank. She couldn't do it. Ed reached out and put his other hand on her shoulder, and she felt a small rush of love and worry from the contact. 

God, she loved him _so much_ , she had to at least do _something_ before she lost her nerve!

Before she had given herself much of a chance to think about it, she used her burst of courage to lean forward, closing the distance between them and pressing her lips against Ed's. Ed gasped against the contact, his automail hand squeezing her shoulder in his surprise. The memories came hard and fast, memories of that damn ballroom again, that place he always thought of around her, fear, panic, none of the thoughts she wanted him to be having while she was kissing him. She had done it all wrong. Noah broke away from him, wanting to cry. She could only hope and pray that maybe, maybe if they talked about it, he wouldn't be scared anymore. Maybe he could learn to accept it, like Al said he would. Al knew Ed better than anyone else, he couldn't be wrong. 

"Noah..." Ed said, and she pressed a finger against his lips. If he kept talking, she was scared she would lose what little nerve she had. 

"I'm in love with you, Edward," Noah whispered, finally flicking her eyes up to meet his. When she met his eyes, he looked terrified, like an animal caught in a trap. Noah supposed she couldn't really blame him, not after years of seeing into his memories. But it still hurt like hell. Ed pulled his hand away from her shoulder to instead grip the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. Noah's heart ached for him, still feeling the worry and pain laced through the memories that were flitting through his brain at hyper speed. 

"You shouldn't love me," Ed finally croaked. "I'm a walking disaster. All I do is cause destruction and chaos everywhere I go. Loving me is dangerous."

" _Love_ is dangerous. And I'm willing to take the risk to be around you," Noah said softly. It seemed like no matter how many times she tried to reassure him that he wasn't a monster, that was always where his mind went anyway. She still didn't think he was a monster, even after she had spent years seeing into his memories. She thought he would have learned by now that there wasn't going to be some new memory he could uncover that would make her see the monster in him, because that monster just didn't exist.

"But-But I'm just going to keep being on the move. I don't even have any paperwork or anything. I-I won't even be able to get properly married." 

"Why would I care about that?" Noah said with a scoff. "I don't have any of those things either."

Ed stared at her for a minute, letting out a whimper as he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Noah bit her lip as she watched him. _Please say something, Ed, please, please. Please don't just leave me here with my heart on the line just because you're scared._ She felt like she had never wished harder that she could send memories in the opposite direction, just so she could show Ed what she was thinking, what she was feeling, how much she loved him just the way they were. How he didn't need to change anything to make her happy, how she would happy just being by his side and spending time with him if that was what would make him happy. But before either of them had a chance to say anything, they were suddenly interrupted by a cheerful voice. 

"Noah! Brother!"

Noah almost wanted to curse at Al for managing to interrupt during the worst possible time. Now, of course, Ed was going to focus on being happy and cheerful for Al's sake, because that was always what he was doing. He wasn't actually going to want to finish this conversation, because that was the type of person Ed was. Always avoiding, always running. She sighed and turned with Ed to look at Al, who was coming towards them with a wide grin on his face. She and Ed both gave him a weak smile in return. 

"Were you two heading home?" Al said, glancing between the two of them. Noah raised her eyebrows at Ed. _Yes, do tell, Ed, are we still heading home?_

"Y-Yeah," Ed said softly, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck.

"Oh, good! We can all go home together!"

"Actually," Ed frowned and glanced at Noah out of the corner of his eye, biting his lip. She felt the panic beginning to bubble up from her toes. Oh no. Here it was. He was going to find a way to avoid her, avoid the entire problem, and then she was probably going to wake up to him and Al having skipped town or something. How could she be stupid enough to admit her feelings to him? "I was thinking I would make some potato pancakes tonight, but we're out of eggs. I'll meet you at home in a bit?"

"Oh, awesome! I love potato pancakes!" Al said, digging in his pocket and pulling out some money that he then handed to Ed. 

Noah opened her mouth, wanting to tell Ed not to do this, to please just come home with her and Al. But if he was separating from Al, he was going to have to come back. There were no promises between her and Ed, but he would always come back for his younger brother. She sighed. 

"See you in a bit," she murmured.

"Yeah, we'll see you at home," Al said, glancing between Noah and Ed, his smile just a shade or two dimmer. 

"Yeah, see you soon," Ed said softly, but as he did, he locked eyes with Noah. He was telling _her_ specifically that he would see her soon. Ed didn't just say "see you soon," carelessly like that. If he was saying that directly to her, that meant he wasn't going to just try and skip town while she was sleeping. He was going to do everything possible to make sure he actually got to see her again, even if something terrible happened while he was out. Noah smiled a little at him and nodded, then turned with Al in the direction of home. She could hear Ed pause for a minute, and then she heard his footsteps getting further away. 

Noah closed her eyes and prayed for a second that letting him go for now was actually the right choice. 

"So what's going on with you and Brother?" Al said as soon as they were out of earshot, leaning in conspiratorially like it was some sort of secret. Noah sighed. Of course. Al always knew the instant anything was off with Ed. 

"I confessed my feelings to him like you said I should," she said without looking at him. She decided to leave out the part about kissing Ed. That had been a spur-of-the-moment decision for her, something she had resorted to when her words had failed, and she still wasn't sure it had actually been the right choice. 

"Oh gosh!" Al said, one of his hands going to his face. "He didn't reject you, did he?" 

"Not yet," Noah said with a rueful smile. "You showed up before he got the chance."

Al paused for a minute as he realized what that meant. "Oh, Noah, I'm so sor-" 

"Don't worry about it," she said with a wave of her hand. "You had no idea, and this is probably better anyway. He'll get a chance to think instead of saying whatever stupid impulsive thought is the first thing to jump in his head." 

"I'm sure he won't stay out too long," Al said as they rounded the corner and came on their building. Noah sighed. 

"I hope so." 

Al decided to save Ed some time with the potato pancakes by getting the peeling and shredding started, while Noah tried to pretend she was reading on the sofa. But she couldn't seem to stop herself from biting her nails and looking over at the door every other minute. With every minute that passed, Noah felt herself getting more and more tense. It didn't take this long just to get eggs. She knew he wouldn't just leave Al behind, and that he had said he would see her soon, but she still couldn't help but worry. 

What if he'd had a meltdown or flashback? She knew he'd been remembering that darn ballroom when she'd kissed him, but she hadn't thought that would be enough to throw him into one of his fits, not when he had seemed mostly fine right when it had happened. He had been shaken that she had kissed him, sure, but it hadn't seemed like he had been on the brink of losing it. 

She was interrupted out of her thoughts by a knock at the door, and she jumped up before Al even had a chance. Ed had a key and lived here, so there was no way he would knock. But what if something had happened? What if it was the police coming to say Ed had died or something?

No, that wouldn't happen. 

Surprisingly enough though, it actually was Ed at the door, looking bewildered and lost standing beside Else. Noah frowned at him. 

"So I found him wandering around the town square and yelling gibberish at everyone," Else said, making Noah feel even more confused. Gibberish? "I have no idea what he's getting at. I thought the best thing to do would be to bring him home." 

"Thanks, Else," Noah said with a sigh, and then turned to Ed with a frown. "Are you alright? What's going on?" 

Ed had been looking at her with a concentrated expression ever since she'd first opened the door, but suddenly his eyes flashed and it looked like he had remembered something. 

"Rosé?" Ed said, leaning forward. She felt her fingers tighten against the door frame. Not that name. She felt like she'd spent so long trying to prove to Ed that she wasn't Rosé, and all it took was one flashback and he was back to seeing her as just a copy of the real girl he had once known in his world. 

Ed then sighed and said something in Amestrian, and Noah felt her eyebrows shoot up. Not gibberish, then. He had apparently been going around speaking Amestrian. But normally Ed was so good about making sure he only spoke languages from this world when he was in public. She couldn't even entirely tell what he was saying, other than having caught Al's name. 

"Al is-" she said, pointing over her shoulder. But Ed didn't even let her finish the sentence, pushing past her and into the apartment. 

Noah could still remember a time when Ed's memories had felt so novel and exciting to her. After a lifetime of seeing memories from everyone around her, they had all started to blur together. But Ed's had never felt like that. He had felt immediately foreign to her from the very first flash of memory she had seen from him. After four years of casual touching, of holding hands in crowds and bumping shoulders in lectures, Noah prided herself a little on the fact that she felt like she knew Ed better than he knew himself. His memories had gotten so familiar to her that sometimes when they were just sitting and casually touching, it was hard for her to remember where she ended and he began. 

These were not Ed's memories. 

They had that same foreign tang that Ed had first had when she'd met him. Something about these memories felt strange and... _otherworldly_. Not just because they were from Amestris. Noah had gotten so familiar with Amestris over the years that it felt like home to her too. But this, this was a different Amestris that flashed before her eyes for the briefest of moments. There was a giant, endless room filled with blood and a giant monster of some kind. A young boy with dark hair and a homunculus tattoo on his hand. Two beings that seemed to melt between being men and being a lion and gorilla and then back to being men all over again. White lumbering shapes with ribs poking out, moaning and reaching for her. A giant eye opening and the feeling of utter dread, and then a boy who looked almost exactly like Ed, only his face was cruel and cold. 

And then Ed was in the apartment, and Noah was left gasping for breath. What _was_ that? It was like Ed's world, but not at all Ed's world. The boy who had looked like Ed had seemed like he was some sort of threat, but he'd had the same face as Ed. But he wasn't Ed. Oh god. Oh god. Was that what was happening now? 

"And Noah, I thought you should know..." Else said, leaning in like she was sharing a secret. "When I found him, he was kissing this strange girl, some blonde." 

Noah felt her stomach drop to her feet. Oh no. She'd confessed her feelings and he was going right back to that Winry fixation of his. Really, what else could she expect? Well, she'd certainly not expected that he would just end up kissing any blonde girl just because he still loved Winry on some level. But she tried to keep her face neutral as she looked at Else. 

"I'm sure it was just some kind of misunderstanding," she said with a smile. "I think Ed's probably feeling a little under the weather. We'll make sure he gets taken care of. Thanks so much for helping him get home." 

"Of course," Else said with a smile. 

They said their quick goodbyes, and then Noah was closing the door and storming back in the house. She could already hear Ed and Al talking in Amestrian. 

"Alphonse," she snapped, and Al was looking up at her from his position on the floor beside the thing that looked like Ed. "That is not Edward." 

"What?" Al stood up and looked at her with a frown, his hand still on the intruder's shoulder, like he was protecting it. Noah almost wanted to rip him away from this intruder who somehow looked like Ed and sounded like Ed. 

"I don't know who he is, but he's not Ed," Noah said, crossing her arms. "He touched me right before he came in, and his memories are nothing like Ed's. There was some guy in his memories who looked like Ed, but he was actually evil, and I think he was trying to destroy everything. I don't know exactly what was happening. But I know that _that_ is definitely not Ed, even if it looks and sounds just like him." 

Al frowned and hummed before crouching down and saying something to Ed in Amestrian. 

"Edward Elric," the thing said, looking Al directly in the eyes and saying something else that Noah couldn't quite catch.

"Alphonse Elric," Al said back with a small chuckle. And then he and Ed were off speaking in Amestrian, leaving Noah completely lost. She caught Al mentioning something about Germany and Eckhart, but other than that, she was clueless. Noah mentally cursed at herself for not being more dedicated to learning the language when Ed had offered to help her. She'd been so sure that it wouldn't be a problem, that his German was so good it wouldn't matter, that she would have all the time in the world to spend learning with him.

And then she caught another word she could recognize. _Winry_. 

"What's he saying about Winry?" Noah snapped, tense from not being able to speak the same language as the two brothers. "Because Else was saying-" 

"Noah, please calm down," Al said with a sigh, looking up from Ed. "He's scared and confused, and I can't keep two conversations in two languages straight in my head at once." 

Noah huffed and let Al turn his attention to the Ed impostor once again. This language barrier was exhausting. 

When the two of them finally stopped talking, Al was standing up and telling Noah that he was pretty sure this was _an_ Ed, just not _their_ Ed. Apparently, Al was pretty convinced that this Ed was from another, alternate world. Which Noah could have told Al as much if he had actually taken the time to listen to her. But he didn't seem to want to hear about what if the impostor wasn't actually Edward Elric in the world it'd come from. 

"I guess Brother's potato pancakes aren't happening tonight," Al said with a sigh, looking over the potatoes he had been in the middle of shredding. "How do you feel about... Fried potato... bits?" 

"It doesn't matter," Noah sighed. Al then said something else to Not-Ed, and then he was helping it off the floor so it could hobble over to the couch. Noah didn't even try to talk to it while Al cooked. It wasn't like she could communicate very clearly anyway, not when they couldn't even speak the same language. Instead, she just pretended to read, propping the book against her knees and flipping a page every now and then. She wasn't absorbing anything from the pages in front of her, but at least it was something to sort of distract her from how intently the Not-Ed was watching her. 

Al's potatoes didn't take very long to cook, since they were such small pieces after being shredded. It led to a really nice crispy texture that Noah wanted to really enjoy, it was just hard to fully enjoy anything when Ed wasn't there, when there was this other thing here instead of him. And Not-Ed and Al were just chatting in Amestrian as if nothing were wrong. It made Noah want to scream. 

The two of them seemed oblivious to the fact that they were leaving her out of the conversation. Which Noah was kind of used to with Ed and Al anyway. They were always off in their own little world with one another, and she understood that. But she had never expected that Al would side with some sort of Ed duplicate, some _stranger_ over her. Especially when she was the only reason he even knew that this wasn't _their_ Ed. 

Eventually, Al seemed to notice that Noah wasn't participating in the conversation very much, and he broke out of the Amestrian long enough to tell Noah that he and Not-Ed were pretty sure that Ed had to be in Not-Ed's world. Noah had no idea why he was so excited about that particular bit of information. What if Ed was struggling to get by in that other world? Was he thinking about them? Did he miss them? Or... Was he happy in that other world, where he apparently got to be married to _Winry_? Wasn't that just what he'd always wanted anyway?

Noah felt like she was going to be sick just thinking about it. Of course, he didn't actually want her, no one actually wanted her, this new Not-Ed-Ed certainly didn't want anything to do with her. 

"I'm going to bed," Noah said, suddenly standing up. Al and Not-Ed both looked at her in surprise. 

"Oh," Al said, blinking. "Are you sure? Because we could-" 

"I don't want to stay up too late," Noah said with a shake of her head. She directed a look at both of them. "There are things that still need to be done tomorrow, and I don't want to just sleep the day away." 

"Well, alright," Al said with a shrug. Not-Ed asked him something in Amestrian, probably wanting to know what was going on, and Al was answering back in Amestrian. Noah huffed and turned in the direction of her bedroom. 

"Uh, goodnight, Noah!" Al called out. Noah paused at her door, half in her room, and half out. 

"Goodnight, Al." 

"Um... Good... night, Noah!" the Not-Ed called out to her. Noah glared at him and slammed her door shut. 

His accent was terrible, anyway. 

Noah wasn't able to fall asleep as immediately as she would have preferred, but it was hard to let herself drift off when she could still hear the two bright Amestrian voices from the other room. Every now and then they would both laugh at something, and Noah was so curious to know what they could even find funny in a situation like this. Ed was gone, and these two were just chatting and laughing like they were old friends catching up. Didn't Al even care that his _real_ brother wasn't here?

Eventually, she did manage to fall into a fitful sleep. she kept having nightmares of Ed disappearing, the Gate just reaching out and swallowing him whole, or him dissolving into nothingness, or in the worst one, him turning around and just walking away from her without looking back, no matter how much she screamed to him. 

It felt like she had only barely managed to fall asleep before she was being awoken again. She could hear Ed's voice coming from the kitchen, his voice high and panicked and talking in... Amestrian. The events of yesterday hit Noah like a brick, and she pulled her pillow over her ears to try and block out the sound. For one minute, she had forgotten that Ed was gone and she didn't particularly like having that fantasy shattered so suddenly. 

But the pillow didn't really help with blocking out the noise, because Not-Ed was just raising his voice more and more, his voice getting wobbly with the strain. What did he even have to be so panicked about, anyway? He at least had Al in this whole ridiculous mess. But clearly, he hadn't been close with Rosé in his world and now she didn't have anything. It would be one thing if she had only lost Ed, but she'd lost Al too, what with him giving all his attention to the Not-Ed. She'd lost the only friends she'd ever had, and yet Not-Ed was out there screaming his head off and making sure she couldn't get any sleep. Noah ripped her pillow off and stormed out of the room, slamming her bedroom door behind her. 

"Put a freaking muzzle on that thing!" she snapped, putting her hands on her hips as both boys turned to look at her. Al's eyes widened. 

" _Noah_!" he snapped, slamming the spoon on the counter. Not-Ed was then asking Al something in Amestrian, and Al was explaining. Noah wanted to scream. 

"It's like you don't even care that your brother is just _gone_!" she yelled at Al. "Does it not even matter to you which Ed you're hanging around, as long as it's an Ed? Do you not care that he can't remember anything about your lives together?" 

"Brother supported me when _I_ couldn't remember anything about our lives together!" Al snapped. "And I don't see why I can't show him the same basic courtesy! Honestly, Noah, being angry and slamming doors like a _child_ isn't going to get him back! We have to figure out what's going on if we want to even have a hope of making sure Brother's okay. I'm sorry your feelings are hurt because your love confession got all messed up, but he doesn't know about that, and you- You have to be the bigger person right now! How would you feel if the people Brother's interacting with right now were treating him like you're treating this Ed?" 

"That's not the same!" Noah snapped at him. Al huffed and turned back to his potatoes, muttering something in Amestrian. Noah wanted to scream. It wasn't like she didn't know the "muttering insults under your breath in another language" trick, considering how often she did it in Romani. But it didn't matter, anyway. Not-Ed was getting the plates and Al was serving up breakfast as if it were any other normal morning. Noah picked at her potatoes without a word. She couldn't stand being around this person who was so much like Ed and yet nothing like Ed at all. She couldn't stand the way Al was acting. She couldn't stand any of this. 

Al sighed, said something in Amestrian, and set his fork down on the plate with a soft clink before turning to Not-Ed. He was then saying something low and soft to Not-Ed, giving Noah a glance in the middle of his talk. She almost wanted to stick her tongue out at him, but she resisted the urge. Al wanted her to be more mature, okay, she was being more mature. 

"And Noah..." Al said with a sigh, turning to her. "Don't worry about busking today. Just... Please try to get along? I would think you of all people would know what it feels like to be in a world that isn't your own and yet somehow people already hate you just for who you are. I know I wasn't there when you and Ed met, but judging from everything both he and you have told me, I think Brother was more willing to give you a chance than you're giving his double right now. What do you think Brother would think of that?" 

Noah almost wanted to cry out at how unfair that was, how it twisted her insides up into knots. She risked shooting a glance over to Not-Ed, only to find he was staring right at her with a worried expression on his face. How dare he pretend he was concerned for her when he didn't even know her! She snapped her face back to Al. 

"But he needs to know about your abilities. One of us has to tell him. It's only fair that he knows so he doesn't get taken by surprise." Al paused with a sigh, noticing Noah's nervous expression. "Would you prefer if I just told him?" 

"Yeah," Noah said with a huff, and then she was up from the table, storming off to her room again. As soon as the door was safely closed again, she was sliding to the floor, trying to make sure her sobs didn't make any noise. God, if the Not-Ed didn't already hate her just for the way she had treated him, he would certainly hate her now. Most people did after they found out about her. No one wanted to be friends with her, to hang out and risk having their deepest secrets spilled by an accidental touch. 

Noah sat there on the floor with silent tears streaming down her face as she heard Al talking to Not-Ed in a soft tone. Not-Ed didn't seem angry or upset, but it was hard to read exactly what he was feeling when she didn't understand the words he was saying and also couldn't see his face. After a few minutes, the conversation ended and Noah heard the front door close. She braced herself, waiting for an angry Not-Ed to come barging in her room to yell at her, but the intrusion never came. Instead, she just heard the soft click of the other bedroom door. She sat up a little, blinking. 

After another minute of silence, she dragged herself to her feet and slowly opened her door, peeking her head out. There wasn't a Not-Ed sitting in the living room. Noah frowned and slowly tiptoed out of her room, half expecting to get surprised any minute. The door to Ed and Al's bedroom was closed, and she could hear a slight rustling from inside. She paused outside the door, her hand reaching out for it. She felt like she was so close to Ed, like she could just go through that door and find him like he always was, happy to see her and speaking German, ready to go out for their daily adventures. 

But he wouldn't come, no matter how much she wanted him. Noah pulled her hand away from the door with a sigh and went back to her room. 

Noah woke up again after a small nap, feeling exactly like she would expect after falling asleep crying. Her stomach grumbled at almost the exact moment she started sitting up, and she decided to brave going out of the room to see if she could make some kind of food. 

Not-Ed wasn't in the other room, and when Noah tiptoes over to his door, she could hear snoring. She almost laughed. It seemed that no matter what universe they were from, an Ed always ended up sleeping in the same chaotic way. She nodded and tiptoed to the kitchen, trying to pull out pots and pans as quietly as she could manage. They didn't have a huge amount of food in the house, but one thing they always had around was potatoes and cabbage. Time for Borscht. It wasn't the most exciting meal she could think of, but it was at least hearty and cheap. 

As she puttered around the kitchen, Noah thought over what Al had said before leaving. He was right about one thing—Ed was never anywhere near this mean to her when they first met. And it wasn't like he'd had all that much reason to trust her in the first place. Heck, Ed was such a good, kind person that he had even been willing to _forgive_ her after she'd betrayed him. And he had still let her touch him, even let her go so far as to kiss him. Noah wiped a tear away from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. 

_"I don't understand. Why would you want me to come with you?"_

_"Because you're my friend, Noah."_

_"But why am I your friend? I spied on your dreams and sold them to your enemies!"_

_"True. But..." Ed smiled at her a little as he thought. "I've made decisions in my past that I've regretted, and I wouldn't really want people to hold those decisions against me the rest of my life, even when I've worked to be a better person. So I don't see why I should hold something against you when I would hope someone wouldn't do that to me."_

Noah nodded to herself as she stirred the soup. She could at least do the decency of treating this other Ed the same way her Ed wanted to be treated. Because she was hoping that wherever he was, the people around him were being kind and understanding. So when the soup was done cooking, she went to Ed's room and knocked gently. 

"Ed?"

There was a shuffling sound from inside the room. It almost sounded like he had been awake and she had startled him. After a minute, Ed opened the door, looking at her with a shocked expression. 

"Um, yes?" 

Noah did her best to give him a smile. Try to be like Ed. Be who he was to you when he first met you. 

"Ed... hungry?" she said in Amestrian, and pretended she had a bowl of soup she was eating. She cursed at herself. She had only been learning Amestrian casually, just picking up a word here and there whenever Ed and Al had thought to translate for her. Which meant she had almost no idea how Amestrian grammar was supposed to work. 

Other-Ed blinked at her and said something in Amestrian, some kind of question that ended on the word "Amestrian." Oh, he had to be curious that she could speak this language that didn't exist here. But how could she tell him that she hardly knew how to speak it? She only knew the occasional word. Noah hummed and bit her lip.

"Tiny," she said. Other-Ed frowned for a minute, his eyebrows creasing hard at first before his eyes suddenly lit up as he understood. 

"Um... Yes. Hungry," Other-Ed said, giving her a grin and rubbing at the back of his neck with his left hand. "Food?"

"Food," Noah agreed with a nod, moving away from the door while trying to give him enough space to follow her without having to accidentally touch her. She went over to the stockpot and bowls she'd pulled out, immediately ladling soup into a serving for Other-Ed. Her stomach grumbled again, like it had been doing the entire time she'd been cooking. She couldn't wait to finally eat. 

Other-Ed said a long strong of Amestrian then, of which Noah could only pick out the words "I.. get... coffee..." She frowned. Had Al specifically said to make sure Other-Ed got coffee for some reason? But it was always so difficult for Ed to get coffee, having to do weird deals with that friend of his. And without Ed around, who knew when they would next get coffee? 

"Coffee?" she asked in German, hoping he would know the word. Maybe she was just translating wrong. But Other-Ed was nodding with the bright eyes of someone who had recognized a foreign word they needed. She sighed. How to explain this in Amestrian? How did one say expensive? She knew she'd heard Ed say it a few times, but she just couldn't quite remember. She could remember the word money, so maybe if she just exaggerated that word, it would mean the same thing?

"Very... Ah... Very... _very_ money."

Other-Ed blinked at her for a minute, and then said something in Amestrian, something something something, _expensive_. Noah nodded at him. That word sounded familiar now that she heard it. She was sure that was the word she'd heard Ed saying before. 

"No coffee," Other-Ed said with a wave of his hand. And then he said something about soup. Noah smiled and held out the soup she was holding. 

"Soup," she said in German, and Other-Ed grinned at her. 

"Soup," he repeated, but in German this time. Noah felt like she had accomplished something big. They were actually managing to talk to one another, without a translator, and she was even managing to get along with him! But the moment of victory suddenly shattered when Other-Ed reached out for the soup, and his arm let out a scream before falling limp to his side. Ed said something in Amestrian that Noah was pretty sure had to be a curse. She frowned at his limp arm. 

She had seen this issue come up way too many times with Ed. She was always telling him he should just switch to one of the newer models his dad had left behind, but he always brushed her off. He said he wanted to use this old arm until it refused to work or fell apart completely, and not any sooner than that, because he had no idea if he would have any way to get new automail after he was through the spares his dad had left behind. It was normally an easy fix, but it involved broaching a topic Noah hadn't really wanted to broach in the first place, let alone with a massive language barrier. 

"I... fixing?" she murmured. Other-Ed looked at her with wide eyes, suddenly not paying attention to only his arm. He said something else in Amestrian. Noah didn't know exactly what it was, but it was some sort of question, probably something like asking if she knew what was wrong. She bit her lip. "Touching." 

She hoped it would be enough for him to understand. She could fix his automail, but it would involve touching him. Which for some people would mean going around for the rest of the day with a broken arm. Noah felt like she was on the brink of crying. Here she had been managing to get along with him, and it was all going to fall apart now once he actually admitted he didn't want anything to do with touching her. 

"Noah." She was interrupted out of her thoughts by a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she jumped at the contact, looking up at him. The memories hit her hard then, not the terrified memories she'd seen the night before, but soft, gentle memories. Memories of green grasses waving in Resembool, the feeling of safety and family, of walking slowly beside Al as the crutches clacked against the dirt road, the look on Winry's face when she saw them on her doorstep.

These weren't the same memories she had seen a million times while she was with Ed, but there was still something so familiar about these memories. Resembool was the same, his love for Al was the same... Ed would have been so happy to see memories that meant there was a him out there who'd had such a... _happy_ ending. 

"Touching yes," he murmured. He said some further Amestrian Noah couldn't completely understand, but she managed to catch the words "scared and "not." Noah could feel the tears start streaming down her face. He wasn't scared of her? The tone in his voice, the softness in his eyes, it was suddenly so familiar. He had that same sad tone that Ed had when she'd first meet him, where he somehow just _knew_ how much people had avoided her for her entire life, like he knew how _desperate_ she was for someone to not be scared of her. 

Suddenly she couldn't figure out how she could have ever looked at this person and thought that he wasn't anything like her Ed. He was the same kind soul she had already come to love. She looked at him through blurred vision, feeling like she could see the point where the two Eds intersected and became the same person. 

"Edward." 

Further showing how kind he was, he didn't try to ask questions or demand she explain things with words she didn't know. He just stood there and let her cry, squeezing her shoulder. For once she was able to cry without seeing memories of that ballroom and the girl with pink hair she was so jealous of. Instead, she could see a train with Winry on it, some words getting shouted in the wind and getting lost in a train whistle, a worried phone call in the middle of the night, the receiver cold and pressed tightly against skin, having automail tweaked and tightened and trying not to react while feeling amazed at the simple grace with which Winry moved. 

She was no Winry, but she could at least help him in the little way she knew how. Noah wiped her tears away from her eyes and reached for his arm. 

"I fixing," she said, and Ed leaned so she could reach his shoulder. She braced a hand first on the back side of his automail, right at his shoulder, and then she reached up and gave his shoulder joint a hard smack. Ed let out a little whimper when Noah smacked him, like he was trying not to react but had still gotten startled. In the moment of him being scared, Noah got another pang of memory, another moment of fear, a toddler squirming on his lap, of being handed a tiny baby wrapped in a blanket. 

Noah reeled with the memory, staring at Ed in surprise. His arm was working again, and he was flexing the fingers and muttering something in Amestrian. He hadn't said he had kids. He had kids? And here she had been blaming him and thinking he was some sort of evil impostor who was going to try and take over, when of course he wanted to go home. It was hard not to feel the longing in his memories, how much it hurt him to be separated from them. 

He looked up at her and shrugged like he was trying to say he didn't know how to translate what he'd just said. Noah just shook her head, unsure how to say that wasn't what she had been thinking at all. 

"You... father?" she said in Amestrian. At least that was a word she knew after how many times her Ed had said it, usually followed by curse words. Ed froze and looked at her with wide eyes, like he'd been caught. Maybe after this, he'd change his mind about not being scared of her.

"Yeah," he whispered, bringing his eyes up to meet hers. "Yeah, I'm a father."

It struck her that it was the first full sentence she'd managed to understand from him, because it was the first sentence simple enough for her skill level. She wasn't even sure what to say in response to that. Congratulations? Yeah, congratulations you're an entire world away from your kids. And if he had the same history as her Ed, then he was probably worried he was being just like his dad. Noah sighed and turned back to the borscht as she tried to think of what to say. After she had finished pouring herself a serving, she looked down at the first bowl, her mind flicking back to Ed's arm. Probably better if she just carried both of them for now, just in case. 

There was so much she wanted to say and so few words to say it with. She was so glad to see a world where Ed was happy and had a beautiful family, even if it wasn't her. She was so proud to know he was trying to recover despite everything he'd been through. She was so touched to feel his love for his children through his eyes, to know he would move the stars for them to keep them safe and happy. She put the bowls on the table, turning to look at him and feeling the tears threatening to come.

"Your childrens..." she said, slowly smiling at him as she remembered the warm feeling of the memory. "Beautiful."

Ed looked back at her and said something in Amestrian, his voice cracking a little as he grinned at her. She had no idea exactly what he'd said, but she knew he absolutely agreed with her.

The two of them sat down and ate their soup after that. It was the same sort of comfortable silence that Noah had gotten used to with Ed. Some days he was an absolute chatterbox and wouldn't even let her get a word in, but other days he would get lost in thought and forget he had to actually say all the things he was thinking. Somehow, even though this wasn't _her_ Ed, they could still have that same comfortable silence that came from being deep friends with someone. Noah wondered at that. Did part of him just remember being friends with her? When people were able to instantly be best friends, was it just because their other selves were close in another world? Noah smiled to herself a little at the thought.

"The soup..." Ed said in German, and Noah looked up at him with a huge smile. He was remembering words and making an effort to speak in the language she understood instead? He gave her a nervous smile and repeated himself, then said the word for "delicious" in Amestrian. Noah felt so pleased she knew that word so she could catch the compliment.

"Thank you so much!" she chirped in German. Ed tilted his head at her and then repeated the phrase, like he was a little parakeet learning how to talk.

"Yeah, thank you so much!" Noah said, nodding at his pronunciation. His accent had somehow already gotten so much better since last night. She wondered if he would just know what the phrase meant, or if he was trying to ask her. She thought through her small Amestrian vocabulary. "Ah... Thank you... very!"

"Thank you so much, Noah," Ed said, and then gestured towards his empty soup bowl. "Uh... The soup."

Noah blinked at him and raised her eyebrows. He was already assembling basic sentences, and she was still hardly able to even understand a full sentence. "You... learner fast!"

"Yeah. Genius," Ed said with a half-laugh. Noah could remember other times her Ed had said that while sighing or rolling his eyes, and she chuckled at the thought. The two of them really were similar. 

And after that, Ed got a faraway look in his eyes that always had meant there wasn't going to be much to do to snap him out of it until he decided to come out on his own. Noah smiled a little at the familiar expression. It was funny how she could have an Ed right in front of her, and see so many things that reminded her of the Ed she knew, and yet, she was somehow still missing her Ed. She missed the comfortable familiarity that was between them. She missed just being able to have an actual conversation with him. 

She also couldn't help but worry that this was her fault somehow. She didn't like thinking like that, but the timing just seemed... too coincidental. Was it because of the stress that he had switched? Noah supposed that she didn't really know anything that would cause a switch like this to happen, but she didn't really want to chalk it up as just coincidence, either. Maybe that was just the result of hanging around Ed for so long. 

She was interrupted from her thoughts by a loud crash and Ed suddenly yelling something in Amestrian. When she looked up, he was smacking at his shoulder, with the broken dishes at his feet. She sighed. Right. That was why she had taken the dishes to the table in the first place, because she knew that it was likely he would have his arm act up again if it had already happened once. Ed had always just had days where he struggled to make his arm work. And then she'd gone and let herself get so distracted that she hadn't even noticed Ed grabbing the bowls. 

But nothing she could say or think now would stop the dishes from being broken, and all it would do was make Ed feel worse than he probably already did. Noah grabbed the dust pan and went over to help Ed, sweeping up all the tiny pieces he couldn't grab. She didn't know of any good words she could say to him, but she knew she could at least be there with him so he'd know he wasn't alone. 

After they had finished taking care of the broken dishes, Noah turned her attention to the soup, turning it down to the lowest setting and putting the lid on top. That would cook down nicely by the time Al came home. She nodded in satisfaction and turned her attention back to Ed, only to find he was unbuttoning his shirt. 

She nearly squeaked at the sight, but managed to have it come out as only a soft gasp instead. Sure, she had seen her Ed in this same body without his shirt on plenty of times before, but that somehow felt different, even if it was the same body. She didn't feel like she even knew this Ed very well, so to see him suddenly peeling his shirt off in front of her felt... indecent. Ed glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Arm," he said, waving his right arm at her. "Uh... automail. Fix. Uh... mechanic... Tiny. Tiny mechanic." 

As soon as he said it, his face shifted to an expression of horror, and Noah couldn't help but giggle. Of course, he was sensitive about his height too. How could an Ed ever not worry about his height. He took a deep breath and shook his head like he was at least _trying_ to be mature, so Noah decided to take some pity on him and pretend she hadn't noticed the slip. 

"The automail?" she said. The article was German, but there wasn't a German word for automail because it didn't exist here, so the only word Noah had ever known was the Amestrian one, even if she and her Ed tacked an article onto it when they were using it in German sentences.

Ed blinked and looked over at her, his fingers frozen in the middle of undoing a button. "Uh, yeah, automail." 

Well, if this Ed had any sort of experience with automail, Noah could certainly think of something he would be happy to see. And heck, she would be happy if he could do anything with it, since she had been worrying about Ed and the state of his automail for a while now. Did being married to Winry mean that he had just absorbed a little of her automail knowledge? Was that just something that happened when people got married, that they just shared a little bit of themselves with each other?

Noah nodded and turned in the direction of his and Al's room, gesturing for him to follow her. She immediately went straight for his closet, while Ed sat on the bed. She started rearranging some of the boxes, knowing that the particular one she was looking for was buried at the bottom of the closet. They hadn't needed to touch it for a long while, after all. What could any of them do with broken automail when they weren't even "tiny" mechanics? But she could still remember how much better it had been for Ed when he'd had this arm and leg working. He'd had better mobility, less pain, and it had taken so much longer for them to break than his usual arm and leg. If there was even a chance that this Ed could fix them...

"Aha!" Noah said when her eyes fell on a familiar wooden box. It was far too heavy for her to lift with two automail limbs in there along with a bunch of hay to keep them nice and padded. Thankfully, Al had planned ahead and made sure to slip a piece of felt under the box when they'd first shoved it in the closet, so she could drag it out of the closet without any fear of scratching the floor. Noah felt almost triumphant as she wiggled the lid off, displaying the two dull metal limbs inside. 

"Winry," Ed breathed, leaning forward and touching the automail in a way that was almost reverent. Noah smiled and glanced around the room as he inspected the box, leaving him to inspect it himself, since he was the one who knew what he was doing. 

Her eyes stopped and froze when she saw the small leather book sitting on Ed's bed. _Ed's journal_. She glanced back at the other Ed with a frown. Had he purposefully gone snooping for this? But why would he even need to read it? Wouldn't he just have the same thoughts as Ed anyway? 

Or was he trying to figure out how to act more like Ed so she trusted him more? She looked back at the book with a deep frown. Here she'd thought that maybe she'd been too harsh on him, that maybe he was more like Ed than she had first given him credit for. But no, he'd had to study the right way to behave in order to gain her trust. 

"Thank you so much, Noah," Ed said in German from behind her. She couldn't figure out how to tear her gaze away from the book for one minute, feeling like she was burning a hole through the book like a sunbeam through a magnifying glass. Eventually, she managed to snap her gaze over to Not-Ed, giving him a glare. 

"Why would you read that?" she snapped at him, and he flinched. She knew he couldn't understand her when she was yelling at him in German, but she couldn't help herself. "Why would you have any reason to read that? That's _Edward's!_ And it's not fair for you to read it and know everything about me, and know how sensitive I am about someone touching me, and-"

Ed waved his hands at her frantically, saying something rapidly in Amestrian that she couldn't catch, aside from the word "reading." Excuses. He was just making excuses for having read the thing, probably saying that reading it didn't count because it was just his double. 

But she knew there had to be things in there about her, things that she wasn't sure she wanted Not-Ed to know, things that were supposed to be private moments between her and Ed. Those weren't his to just take away from her, not when it was all she had left with Ed now that he wasn't here. 

She wondered for the briefest of moments if this was why everyone else tried to avoid touching her, if they were scared of having to share their memories with an intruder, someone who didn't deserve these private moments. Noah shook her head. No, this was different. 

She resisted the urge to slap Not-Ed for his stupid excuses, opting to instead storm out of the room. She couldn't even stand to look at him, not when it reminded her so much of Ed and ripped her apart to her core. 

**Author's Note:**

> So my beta/spouse nudged me the other night and asked if I had ever tried listening to the song Beautiful Ghosts while thinking about applying it to Noah. Yes, Beautiful Ghosts from the 2019 Cats movie. I was skeptical at first, but then I listened and OH. MY. GAWD. It's an absolute perfect fit, I swear. I know it's weird to say "Hey, this song from the modern live-action Cats disaster fits Conqueror of Shamballa," but it really does. I think it honestly fits Noah even better than the movie it was actually written for. 
> 
> Anyway, hearing that got me hit hard with the Noah feels, so I wrote up this little bonus thing. I may or may not add more to this as time goes on? I haven't fully decided yet. I partly did this for my own reference, because it's honestly hard to write that much of a language barrier and be fully aware of what the character on the other side is thinking, but I thought it would be fun to share. 


End file.
